The Journey continues

So this past weekend marked one year after I left the Krishna community. I thought it would be only fitting to do a blog entry to mark the occasion, partly to discuss some of my thoughts one year out, and talk a little bit about this past year. I do also kinda miss writing this blog regularly. I had plans to either continue or to start a new blog, but they never really manifested. I even set up a new blog after my last entry in this one, called “Change of Season”, but aside from an introduction which was never published, I never touched it. Maybe I will one day, at the moment, however, I find that I'm usually just too busy.

University kept me busy for most of the past five or six months. It also served to keep my desire for writing satisfied with it's constant stream of essays and research assignments. When I was 19 I enrolled in a Bachelor of Nursing degree in Hamilton, at the Waikato Polytech, which is now called Wintec. I only finished one semester of study, but my marks were all pretty decent. It was a very full year of study, when I try and remember all the names of the papers I had to take that year, I'm certain it was a fuller course of study than the nursing degree I'm currently doing. I remember having to do a communications/computer literacy paper, microbiology, anatomy and physiology, cultural sensitivity, nursing theory, nursing practice and human growth and development. My best mark back then was in the cultural sensitivity paper. This year, with my current attempt at a bachelor of nursing degree, my best marks were in my communications paper and the human growth and development paper.

I don't know how many people are familiar with human growth and development theories, or general psychology theories, but most development theorists have structured their concepts into basic stages of development. They all have their different styles, Freud is definitely a nutcase, but an influential one. The basic pattern is theorists will identify a certain development stage or conflict which people go through at different points in their lives. And different theorists really focused on the development of different aspects of a person. Freud focused on the psycho-sexual development, Erikson was all about psycho-social development, Piaget was into cognitive development, Kohlberg was into moral development theories, and Fowler presented a very interesting theory of faith development.

I first started making movements towards the Krishna community when I was 21, and walked away during the last few months of my 29^th year of life. In terms of human development, those are generally very dynamic years of life. When looking back on one's life path, it is always impossible to say exactly how we would have ended up if things had gone differently. But when I consider my 7 years within the Krishna community, especially looking through the lens of development theories, I can't help but feel that the structures of the specific community that I was part of stifled my personal development during my time within it. And the struggles of this past year seem to me to be the result of suddenly finding myself in a growth-fertile environment, ready to re-define myself, and allow my long held personal values to mature and produce fruit. During one of my counselling sessions this past year the metaphor of a sponge came to mind, a sponge that had lost it's volume due to dryness, but once coming again into contact with water grew to manifest it's full potential.

Although I believe that my time within the Krishna community temporarily stifled aspects of my personal development, at the same time I think it served as a solid distilling process for my values. The thinking person, when in a situation of a dictated values system will at least challenge internally the assumptions of the dictated system, and feel out those values, always analysing the worth and truth of them in their lives. I entered the Krishna community with a strong sense of values already intact, and when being confronted with a dictated value system, which I adapted in an experimental fashion, testing this system as I journeyed along, in the end I developed a firmer grasp on the values that I personally hold to be the most true. The community itself did not provide a framework for the eventual maturation of this process, but it provided what I think was a sped up, pressure cooker environment that provided the POTENTIAL for growth and maturation. And once removed from that environment and again in contact with an accepting, loving support-system those values developed the simultaneous qualities of firmness and flexibility. Using a rather 'zen' analogy, bamboo is very flexible when blown by the wind, but if you butt heads with it it's going to leave a bump. In terms of Fowler's faith development theory, I guess my experience within the community could be said to have involved the transition from faith stage three, characterized by conformity, to stage four, which is marked by angst and struggle, leading to a point of re-evaluation and reconciliation, a personalized assimilation of values and beliefs without a need for answers to everything, or undeviating doctrinal conformity.

One thing a structured/dictated community can provide is a firm sense of a concrete future. Regardless of what options you choose in terms of Krishna lifestyles, the choices are relatively limited and to some extent dictated, which provides a unique feeling of security, in the sense that you have a fair idea of how your life will turn out. The downside of this, of course, is that none of the options may really fit in with the deeper values that one may hold to. If you have to make a choice between different options which all seem to really miss the mark for you the result can be a sense of despair, or even worse, reluctant acceptance of something deep down you hate. I think this is something that is completely present in the general, secular world as well. I think a lot of people see their options in life as being rather limited, and when faced with various options which all seem like they require us to sell our souls, so to speak, we resign to picking the best of a bad bunch. I don't think this can ever be a healthy choice. Ironically, a lot of people looking in from the sidelines of the Krishna marriage process usually make comments hinting at this. Sometimes it does seem like a lady within the Krishna community is so desirous of changing her current situation and getting married that she will accept any possible male Krishna as a potential husband. Hey, just being honest, but the pickings in NZ are pretty slim if you're a Krishna lady looking for a solid potential husband. But it totally works the other way as well. Regardless of the benefits of certainty and stability offered by the dictated system of Krishna life-planning, I couldn't think of anything I would want less than to have had to restrict my pick of marriage partners to what was available in the closed community I was part of.

However, having left the certainty of a life-planning system I did start to feel a strong sense of uncertainty about my future. I guess it could be akin to the feelings a person would have after having been fired from what they assumed was to be their long-term career, or when someone decides to exit a long-term relationship they had expected to last forever. Whether the change is being forced upon you by an outside power, or it is being forced by your internal desire to remain sane the general result is the same; you find yourself on unstable grounds. That offers you two options: despair or hope. Hope is always the best option, and when you are in a situation where there is uncertainty it is the best time to question existing foundations and rebuild new ones. The despair option is often the one of denial and self-destruction.

The late-20s has the potential to be a time of instability or uncertainty in general, according to some development theorists anyway, especially in this current era of human existence. Often it provides a more intense opportunity for identity testing than was available in the teen years, because you know the power of rebellion well, but now you also have the independence that adulthood brings to increase the potential of your identity testing. I have heard a number of Krishna devotees in their late-20s make comments about their felt need to be more real, or more themselves than they had previously been within the community. The Krishna community that I was part of had a tendency to reward conformity in general, not just in the monastery, but in the wider community itself. I think some form of conformity makes sense in a monastic setting, but that the freedom to express one's identity and personality, and 'realness', should never be repressed.

When I left the monastery I felt uncertainty, both in terms of where my life would lead next, as well as a sense of uncertainty about my place and identity in the world around me. I think much of my time in the first half of this past year was spent defining these things. The sudden sense of liberation from a restrictive social setting gave a wider horizon to test identity and values against. I had a firm sense of what my values were, however, and I think that strength is what allowed for me to experience a year of swift and mature development as a person. I think what I found surprising to some extent as my new sense of identity and firm values began to show their form was that I still held to many of the values and principles that had originally attracted me to the monastic lifestyle I had previously lived. At the same time, these values helped to highlight the aspects of the community I had left which had destructive or cancerous potentials to them. I am attracted to a simple life lived for the benefit of others. I'm attracted to regular rhythms of spiritual practice. I'm attracted to working and living in community. I'm attracted to the ancient, the ritual, the sacred and the divine. I'm attracted to compassion, love and mercy. I'm attracted to a life of sobriety. But I struggle when faced with unnatural and undeserved hierarchy and power structures. I cannot cope with a system that rewards orthodoxy and dogma but ostracises the questioners and doubters. Nepotism and position gained by longevity within a movement both seem like cancerous growths. Criticizing the efforts of social justice for missing a deeper spiritual reality while providing no practical benefit for the vulnerable of the world seems like such an immature tendency. These attractions and repulsions form a major chunk of my world view and my personal value systems, and these things have been the major forces in my life over the past year which have shaped my life-plans, my relationships, and areas that I feel are worth investing my time in.

When I look over the past year of my life I feel an incredible sense of happiness and gratitude. I see a year marked primarily by personal development and growth which occurred at unexpected speeds. I see a year in which I tested many of the assumptions and claims made by the Krishna community about those who leave that community and proved those assumptions wrong. I see a year that I am very proud of, full of achievements and experiences and I am so glad for all of these opportunities.

At the beginning of the year I remember feeling a little bit anxious about having to come into contact again with members of the Krishna community. The main reason was that I was well versed in the assumptions made about those who left the community. I knew that there would be rumours of various kinds, because I've seen it all happen before. I knew that these assumptions and manufactured myths would form the background of all interactions. I knew that there would be an attitude of 'maybe he will return' or 'I never expected him to fall down'. Throughout the year, as I gained a stronger sense of confidence in myself, and realised that I had developed into a much stronger person than I ever was previously, I stopped worrying about these assumptions, and as a result I began to be feel incredibly comfortable coming into contact again with that community. I had my sense of self, and I knew that the assumptions held by the community were false, so I no longer had a reason to worry.

I have no problem with people living in whichever community they choose to live within. I do, however, have a problem with people remaining in a community they feel to be a negative force in their lives, and I have a problem with people remaining in a community because of false assumptions about what will happen if they leave. I have a problem with people staying in a community because they believe that if they were to leave they will become exploitative people with negative, destructive lifestyles that rule their lives. I have a problem with people thinking that leaving a community is something people only do if they are failures or overcome by personal struggles. I have a problem with people remaining in a negative community because they feel like they have nothing waiting for them on the outside. The reality is your life has immense potential, this applies to everyone who is reading this, your life has immense potential. Don't let your potential by restricted by the situations of your life right now. Making a change might feel difficult, but I can assure you, to borrow a phrase, it gets better, it does get better. And the paradox is the more you are willing to make a change, the more that you pursue help when needed and admit weaknesses where they exist, the more you do these things then the more you will see growth occurring in your life, and stronger sense of confidence arising within you.

These are just a few thoughts from over the past year. This is probably the last time I'll ever write in this particular blog. If you have any questions or comments to make on anything at all, please feel free to leave a comment or get in touch. If you want me to e-mail you or something, post your e-mail as a comment. I moderate all comments, so if you send contact details through as a comment I'll just take down the details but not post the comment, if that makes sense.

Thanks for joining me on the journey.

Closing the doors.

When I think about every decision I have made in my life, and in particular my reasons for making those decision, I'm struck by the reality that human reactions to things in life are incredibly complicated. The different ingredients that lead to a reaction or a decision are a massive tangle of desires, previous experiences, world views, social conditioning, emotions and often confusions. It is no simple task to separate all these factors to determine why it is a person acts the way they do, or why they reacted to certain things in ways that perhaps others don't understand. What makes this a more difficult reality is the fact that humans tend to want the simplest answer to things possible. They want summaries. They want a one sentence explanation. Essentially, it seems, they want explanations without personality involved. Give it to me in an equation and I'll understand. Add personality, add emotions, which are so incredibly hard to explain, and you've immediately confused all but the most empathic of hearts.

In all human interactions there seems to be these two things occurring simultaneously. You have so many aspects of our personalities and personal experiences determining how we react to the situations we are confronted with in our lives. These can be so confusing sometimes we may not actually understand ourselves why we act or choose as we do. Yet we still desire very much to be understood, and for our actions to be viewed in the context of our wider life. I want you to understand that my decisions were not results of simple one-off events, but come with a much more intricate background which adds colour and illustrations and animations to every decision I make. Then, you have the human tendency to want to abstract, to simplify. Which means no matter how full a picture one paints explaining why their life is moving in the ways it is moving, still we will never be able to look past the specific detail we decide to focus on. We will abstract according to blue-ness and only be able to see the blue in a painting.

Today, while getting my MRI scan done, which if you have ever experienced one is a very noisy event, my mind managed to focus on one half of the sound, which kinda sounds like a drum-n-bass beat, and completely ignore the more obnoxious sound, which actually did sound like an alarm clock hooked up to a PA system on full. And since it went on for like 1/2 hour all up I kinda had the chance to reflect on things, and this upcoming blog update. Abstracting helps us to cut out the uncomfortable things in life, the uncomfortable parts of human interactions, and allows us to pick and choose what we are going to focus on and target. It really is an amazing coping mechanism, and the stronger we hold to our chosen item of focus, the harder we will argue for its primary relevance in a situation. It also makes it much easier to point blame at others. 'This happened because you did this' and that's the final verdict. It takes a lot of courage to look at things from a wider perspective, primarily because of the fact that when we do look from a wider perspective things can get uncomfortable. We may have to admit our own faults, we may be confronted with issues in others lives which mirror problematic issues in our own, issues that we prefer not to focus on in our own lives, lest they force us to acknowledge and deal with them. And so we abstract, we haze over the details, and focus on whatever we can to avoid looking at the entire picture. We make up stories in our heads about others, or about ourselves. 'I'm like this, therefore of course I am going to act like this' or 'Well, that's the way he is, so it's no surprise he did that'.

I find it funny now, in some ways, when people ask me to summarise why I left the Krishnas in one sentence. Or even ten sentences. Or even really in one conversation. I even find it funny when people say they have read this blog and now understand why I left the Krishna community, and then give their version of understanding. And I find it funny how everyone has taken a different lens to this blog and gives a different explanation all the time. What I really hope is that this blog just helps to show that nothing is black and white, simple or straight forward. In writing this blog, of course, I have focused on certain aspects of situations, because to me those were the aspects that I felt like dealing with at the time of writing. Each entry I wrote needs to be taken in a wider context, beyond just the experiences discussed, but also to include the different emotions and experiences I was going through at the time of writing. Writing really is not a sufficient medium to fully explain what is a very personal experience of life and existence, and that needs to be remembered. There is always more going on than we are able to see, boiling under the surface. We will never get a full picture of anyone, completely. What this SHOULD do is inspire us to ALWAYS give people the benefit of the doubt. We should never write people off automatically, or judge them harshly, because we will have to admit that we will never truly understand what took place to make them act the way they have, or make the decisions they have made in their lives which we disagree with. It is a sad soul that makes firm and condemning judgments on others, assuming perfect vision, never really willing to make the vulnerable steps to understand what it is that led others to what they have become. That is the most lonely existence.

Now that it is a bit over 5 months since the day I left the monastery, I can't entirely remember what I did for that last week. I have a vague memory that the night before I left I went out for dinner with my brother and my good friend, I'm fairly certain that was that night. I think it would be fair to expect that I was excited the day before I left, kind of like the excitement the night before Christmas, but I don't remember entirely feeling that way. I do remember feeling a lot of excitement for the future in general, it felt like I had a wide open space full of opportunities and potential coming my way. I also remember feeling a bit of fear, the kind of fear that comes with any uncertain transition period that approaches. I was well aware that things weren't gonna be cut-and-dry in terms of leaving, and in terms of becoming accustomed to life outside of the monastery and the wider community.

It was December 5th, 2009 the day that I left. I got up late that morning, which wasn't all that uncommon at the time. My little brother was going to pick me up mid-morning, after I gave him a text letting him know that everyone was out of the house. I chanted a little bit with everyone else. We ate breakfast together and just had a normal morning. I remember part of the discussion during breakfast was about how if we left the Krishna community we would never be able to enjoy life again, because we would know the philosophy that everything is temporary and therefore suffering, we would have no choice but to remain devotees instead. Part of me was worried that they had picked up the clues that I was leaving, but no, it was just normal breakfast conversation. My departure was going to come as a big surprise for almost everyone.

I wasn't 100% certain how I was going to tell the other Krishnas yet. Part of me felt like talking to them in person was the best idea. But another part of me just wanted to make a clean break and leave without any hassles or conflict. I knew that if I explained my departure in person it would just turn into a discussion about how I should stay, and I was already determined to leave, it wasn't a question anymore. I also knew that I would have to elaborate on all my reasons for leaving, and that they would be questioned, individually. My reasons for leaving were complex and intertwined, this blog probably indicates that well I hope, so I wasn't interested on discussing that, over and over again on the day. I just wanted to leave and that is all.

During the time that I was supposed to be chanting by myself in the morning I sent a text to an old friend of mine who had left the Krishnas the previous year. I said "Today is the day that I leave Krishna consciousness". He wasn't certain if I was serious at first. I wanted his advice, on how to break the news to the other devotees that I was leaving. Whether in person is best or not. He advised against having the discussion in person. He gave an example from his experience, where he actually felt insulted and even threatened by one senior devotee when he was explaining that he was leaving. I wasn't interested in repeating the same experiences, and some of the people that I would have to discuss this with were the types that I personally didn't trust to let me leave without causing problems. So I decided to go with e-mails and the impersonal text message. It wasn't a decision I made lightly. It's akin to breaking up with a long term relationship with a text. But I just wanted the cleanest break possible, just to sneak out the backdoor and be gone, no questions asked.

I spent much of the morning writing out an e-mail to send to my Guru explaining my departure. I also forwarded that e-mail to the other managers of the monastery, so that they could get the same picture of my departure. The e-mail was fairly vague, just explaining that I had had enough of the relationship problems in the community, that I had lost faith in the practice and the philosophy, and that I had other things I wanted to do with my life. I let them know some arrangements I had made, as manager, to make sure that my leaving would not disrupt things massively. I said thanks for everything I had been given, that I did honestly feel bad for making this departure, but this is what I needed to do for my personal sanity in life. I let them all know that I had organised things well for my departure, I had an income, I had a home, I had a vague plan for the future, I had a lot of friends around me to support me. I wasn't making a rash decision to leave, and I wasn't putting my welfare at risk by running away without having things in order beforehand.

I packed my things up quickly. It wasn't hard. I had been a monk for years, I didn't HAVE anything much to pack. I had one bag of clothes, two boxes of other belongings and my sleeping bag and mat. That was pretty much everything. I took off the beads I had worn around my neck for the past 7 years, along with the sacred thread that I wore over my torso and placed them inside my beadbag which held my chanting beads. I placed them altogether on the desk of one of the monks. I was leaving behind an identity and all that it involved. So I waited for my brother to arrive. When he did we quickly packed my things into his car, I hit the send button on my e-mails out to people, and we left. I put together a few texts to send out to let others know I had left, primarily my friends in the monastery who I felt needed to hear from me directly. I had also sent an e-mail to another devotee, as I was actually supposed to give the presentation that Sunday at the yoga centre, but obviously I was going to need someone to replace me that day. I went through and made sure I had everything, I turned on the alarm, locked the doors behind me, and we left for the city.

I was surprised in some ways just how little of an emotional response was generated by my leaving that morning. Considering I was walking away from 7 years of my life is something that you would think would have been a bigger event for me. But it felt less dramatic then graduating from high school, it was almost a none event. It wasn't the leaving that produced any real emotions for me then, nor in the future, it was more the transition and the unknown possibilities that lay ahead which were going to be the triggers for more emotions as time went by. I didn't feel like I was walking away from friendships, I actually felt like I was taking on and deepening many more friendships and relationships. It really wasn't a sad or difficult day in that respect.

My brother drove me into town, we picked up my friend on K road, then made our way to unpack my stuff at my new house, which didn't take long at all. The weather that morning/afternoon was a bit drizzly, a bit grey and wet. My new house had two dogs in it when I moved in, and unfortunately, while moving my stuff into my room SOMEONE left the door open, and one of the dogs bolted out - GREAT first impression. It was a bit of a shame, but we spent the next 1/2 hour or so trying to find the dog and get her back into the house. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to put my full attention into the task, as the texts that I had sent out to various devotees had started to result in a flood of texts back, which I spent a while replying to, explaining things. Some said things like "Hey, don't worry, you should just come back, we can iron out whatever problems you're having", or "I'm standing in the street, just read your text and the tears are flowing down my face." I didn't receive any negative texts as such. One of the monks sent me a text saying "Hey, no worries big guy. But if you stop being my friend I'm gonna knock you off your bike next time at bike polo!" I made a general policy on that day, I would respond to those who made it clear they wanted to be friends, and approached me as a friend, but I would ignore those who wrote back trying to convince me to stay, or directing criticism towards me for leaving, making assumptions about why I left. And that is how I kept it.

In then end, my flatmate came home, and as soon as he showed up the dog returned immediately. So now it was time to remove the final marker of my being a Hare Krishna, I cut off the tuft of hair at the back of my head. It was like a ceremony of sorts, in a way. Everyone was involved. I had tied my bunch of hair up, and my friend took the hair clippers and shaved it right off. That final bodily reference to being a Krishna was gone. I then razored the rest of my head, clean shaven, and showered. It definitely felt different to be without my neck beads, my sacred thread, and the long bit of hair I had kept at the back of my head. Interestingly, where that little bit of hair had previously been now felt incredibly softer than the rest of my shaved head, for some reason. I was no longer a Hare Krishna. I had changed my world.

While I was shaving my head my Guru had called my cellphone. I wasn't answering my phone that day, but even still I missed that call while I was shaving. He left a message on the voice box, which I checked once I was finished with my shaving and showering. It said "Vidyapati, please don't break my heart in this way. I will be in Wellington in a weeks time. Please come to Otaki and stay with me there so we can discuss this." That was not an easy message to listen to. But my mind was made up, I'm not the type of person to go back on a decision like this, primarily because of the fact that I don't make such decisions lightly. I also was not going to go out of my way, travelling down to Wellington by myself, spending several days by myself in a closed Krishna community. I wasn't going to go through that effort, it wasn't the direction I wanted for my life any longer. I was closing doors.

I also received an e-mail back from one of the devotees I had e-mailed. He basically said that he knew why I had left, hinting that it was because of strong sexual desires, and that I should just admit it, come back, and prepare to marry some nice Krishna girl instead. That was probably the most insulting response I had after first leaving. It was highly presumptuous, and I think even a bit insulting to the Krishna women in general as well. Another devotee called my phone, though I didn't answer it. He left a message saying that he had heard rumours that I had left, and wanted to hear it from the horses mouth directly, and possibly meet up to discuss anything that would see me return. But I wasn't interested in a return.

I had a sort of celebration dinner that evening, at the vegan restaurant on Victoria Street, with a selection of friends and my brothers. I ate the tofu and eggplant hot-pot. It was heaps good. Yes, I actually remember what I ate, that's the way my mind works. Though I can't remember everyone who was there that night. My mother called during that meal, to hear how everything went. I had kept it so quiet that not even all my brothers had known that I was leaving, so mom made me call up the one brother who was out of town and let him hear the news that I had left. It was a weird thing to explain to people at first, a very weird thing indeed. I think it caught a lot of people by surprise.

As the days went by news started spreading amongst the Krishna community, and I started to receive texts and e-mails and facebook messages from devotees all over the place. It was kind of a surprise, especially considering the fact that most all of the messages were coming from women devotees, many of whom I barely knew due to my being a monk for so long. Mostly they were messages saying thanks for everything I had done over the years, saying I was going to be missed, and saying that I would always be welcomed back. One, from a closer friend of mine, wanted me to provide an explanation of why I left, and I did the best I could to explain it at the time. I had one text from a friend of mine saying that he and his wife were both surprised by the news, but still wanted to maintain friendships regardless, and invited me to visit them if I was ever in their area. And I did go and visit them this past January. They cooked some awesome veggie burgers and vegan ice cream when I visited! Unfortunately she was still recovering from the birth of their first child, but it was good to catch up with them regardless.

The day after my departure there was a bike ride that I had help organise, as part of a protest against climate change. I knew that one of the monks was going to be attending, the one that had made the comment that he would knock me off my bike if I stopped being his friend. I was a little nervous, it was going to be the first time I saw a devotee after leaving, and I was still getting used to it all. That day was really my first public appearance as Mikey again, without the beads, the hair, the Hare Krishna identity. It was a bit weird. Especially meeting those who were just finding out I left. It was odd. And as I rode up to the meeting point that day, I saw my monk friend there waiting amongst a group of our mutual friends. I rode up, did a quick skid to stop, and some how or other lost my balance, and completely fell over, my feet still stuck in the toe-clips of my bike. What an entrance! My hands and ego were both bruised a bit at that time, but it certainly broke the ice.

It took a little while getting used to a new life. I always knew it wasn't necessarily going to be a smooth ride, but life really seldom is. My life as a Hare Krishna hadn't really been a smooth ride either. The next few months were testing at times. I discovered that most of the things I had expected to be difficult to deal with in terms of walking away from one time of my life, and preparing for another were actually not all that difficult at all. And things that I hadn't expected to be difficult ended up being bigger obstacles than I had anticipated. I started to have nightmares from time to time, of confrontations with Hare Krishnas. Transitions are difficult, because they provide very little solid ground on which to stand, and the tendency is to grab on to whatever stability is available with all your strength and wait to see it through. There is the tendency to rush forward into the uncertainty, just in the hopes of gaining a new foundation, but that is always a dangerous option. It can result in a wide variety of unfavourable situations. In one sense, all you can really do is hold on through the turbulence, preparing to make the most of what comes next, and slowly start to piece some form of direction back into your life. Having good friends around you helps a lot with that. And maintaining a firm commitment to your personal values through it all is invaluable.

I don't entirely know what is left to say from this point on. I don't know whether to continue forward and discuss in more details what I went through trying to...recover, acclimatize, start anew, rebuild and regain things that I had lost and given up before, find myself again? Not certain what is the most correct term to put in there. Or whether to just write various anecdotes about my time as a Hare Krishna which illustrate themes instead. I guess maybe a combination of those two? Not certain, I guess we'll see what happens. My basic plan for the next few months anyway is to continue to use my free Mondays to write updates. So, next week there will hopefully be something coming to my mind to write about.

I'm Leaving.

I remember when I was 20 or 21 and my girlfriend and I were nearing the end of our relationship. We were living together, and had been for about a year, but things just started to feel like they were falling apart between us. I can remember us having arguments as we lay in bed going to sleep, and I can remember thinking about ending the relationship, and what I would do once that relationship had ended. I would often think about ending the relationship and moving down to Wellington, or up to Auckland. In my mind I always felt like my life would be better outside of that relationship at the time. But although I felt strongly about leaving that relationship, there was still some major emotional and psychological barriers which kept me in it. The thought of changing everything was scary. At the time it felt like it would redefine who I was in the social circles we moved in, it would mean not having that super close support person there when you needed one, and it would mean having to change my living situation, and my life style. It would mean, in one sense, walking away from something that I had put a lot of time, effort, emotions and energy into for close to two years. And as a result, I never did break that relationship. I think for a while we were both in that same situation, both wanting to end it, but neither ready to take that scary step away from the comfortable and the known. It was like an unfortunate stalemate. The breaking point would come when one of us felt like we had more to gain from leaving than we risked losing. She reached that point first.

When I think back on my last few months with the Krishnas, I realise that it really was a very similar situation. I felt like I had reached the end of my ability to remain within that community, yet there was a fear that went along with the thoughts of leaving. It was a great unknown. I had put seven years of serious energy, emotions and effort into this community, and into my own personal progress within this spiritual philosophy. I would have to radically change my world by leaving this community. Nothing would be certain. I would be leaving behind a community which acted as a form of support network in a lot of ways. My own personal value at the time was based primarily on my roles within that community. I gained self-confidence by using my positions within that community to generate praise, or situations which made me feel better about my skills and character. And I knew that I had a stable future available within that community, in the sense that the organisation would provide some kind of directed life for me. These would be things I would lose by leaving, and to leave would mean accepting an unknown future. That was scary. At the same time, I wasn't happy in the community, it was like a relationship that had broken down to the point of being irreparable. And so a sort of stalemate resulted, which could only be broken when I felt that I had more to gain by leaving the community than I risked to lose.

So even though I had come to the point where I was certain that I would leave the community eventually, I really was lacking the confidence to just up and leave. It was a scary thought. I also knew that it would mean that the community would more than likely criticize me and look down upon me for leaving. That I was going to leave was, in my heart, inevitable. When and how were the only things up for questioning. Would I leave suddenly, or draw it out slowly? If I did leave suddenly, when would be the best time to leave? All these sorts of questions did occupy my head for some time.

As the year went on, I found myself having another situation arise with the management committee of the yoga centre which resulted in an increased desire to leave the community. The situation wasn't extreme. It was just a decision that was made by the committee which most of us in the monastery did not fully understand. We asked for some background information on the decision, and when it was given we provided our opinions and suggestions about it. Part of our concern was that although the monks did play an active role in the yoga centre community to some degree, we were given no say in any real way about how things ran, we weren't consulted on decisions that affected us as well. At the time we really had no idea how the committee operated, as we hadn't seen any minutes from their meetings for over a year. So we brought up these concerns in some e-mail correspondence. The result, however, was that we were labelled as insubordinate. I can understand that perhaps we had communicated our concerns through the wrong channels, which we all realised after the fact. But the way this overall situation was handled meant that I had very little faith or confidence in the committee of the yoga centre to run a community is a strong and healthy way. It made me feel increasingly isolated within the wider community of devotees, a trend that seemed to have a long history, and which continued until I left.

I continued to feel that I needed to leave, but I also continued to lack the courage to actually do so. Although I knew that I had a lot of friends outside of the Krishna community, and I would have a solid support network to rely on, it still seemed like I needed to have some deeper friendships, people who I could rely on to really pull me through the pains that this sort of transition is sure to produce. When I became more and more determined to leave the community it really did feel like everything I needed to make that final step fell into place at the right time.

I had a few ideas in my mind, I think I've discussed them previously. One was that I would finish the year of university lunches, stay throughout the summer, attend the Krishna festival over xmas and new years, go to India in February and then leave the community when I returned. That was my selfish plan in a lot of ways. My other idea was simply to leave in early December, after the university lunches took place, but during the time when most of the monks were out selling books as part of the yearly book selling marathons they ran. But because of the stalemate in my mind I hadn't really decided firmly which option to take, let alone whether I would actually have the strength required to make the jump myself.

In about mid-November I started to develop a very solid friendship with someone. It seemed that we were both, at the time, going through some personal struggles, existential crises, and general questioning about what we were going to do with our individual lives. And so a mutually supportive friendship developed. Our friendship mostly grew and developed from conversations over electric mediums, text messages, twitter, facebook, but we would hang out in real life as well. She lived with another good friend of mine, the two of them have both been a massive support for me over the last 5 or 6 months and continue to be in their own unique ways. I went over to their flat on a few occasions and cooked them both an awesome dinner.

In general, over a short period of time a real friendship developed, which for me seemed like the first real friendship I had had in over 7 years. And in this friendship I felt a lot of support and strength. I also felt, for the first time in many years, that I had a friend who generally cared for my overall well being as a person. Our friendship gave me a sense of self worth, and it reminded me of the potential in human interactions to provide a real sense of fulfillment. It also meant that I now had someone who I trusted enough to discuss my issues with, and someone who could provide some honest feedback on my thoughts and plans for leaving the Krishna community.

One weekend I was catering for a Green Party meeting of some sort, over the Saturday and Sunday. I had my new friend join me to help bring the food up into the kitchens, and then clean-up after the lunch had been eaten by the Green party people. While they ate we sat in the car and discussed life etc. It was during that weekend that I made my final decisions about leaving the community, in terms of when to leave etc. I realised it would just be wrong for me to go on a pilgrimage to India and then leave immediately after. We also discussed about the realities of life, that I would likely need to study in order to get a real job eventually, and the university year would start the day after I returned from India. If I were to leave to start studying, I would really have to miss that trip to India. We discussed how, in reality, it was going to be a rocky transition after seven years of living with the Krishnas, and I probably would need a few months to get settled in life again before starting a process as important as studying. I also realised that this was going to be one of the last Christmases that we would spend together as a family, because my parents are planning on moving back to Canada this year. If I missed out on this Christmas, which I would have if I had stayed with the community, then I would have missed out on the last family Christmas together in NZ. So, I made the decision, I would leave the first weekend of December, which I think was the following weekend. Aside from my own issues, I helped to encourage her to get herself sorted to pursue what she wanted to do in life. As a result she ended up enrolling in university as well, following a course of study to get into a path of life she felt was where her passion was.

When I returned from the Green Party catering on the last day that weekend, I decided to call my parents and let them know the decision I had made. That was a very intense phone call. I took the phone into one of the monastery cars that day, and sat in the drivers seat as I talked to my parents. My father answered the phone, and I spoke to him first. My mother was overhearing the conversation that was taking place, but was completely unaware that my father was talking to one of her sons. She seemed certain that my father was talking to someone from work, who was either quitting his job, or getting laid off. I can say with honesty that that conversation showed me a side of my dad that I hadn't seen much in my life. Just before he passed the phone over to my mom, he said, with a choked up voice "You know, your mother and you are the most important things to me in this world." My mom then took the phone with surprise, wondering why my father's work colleague would want to talk to her. When she heard my voice I think she was even more surprised, but at least then it made sense to her why my dad had tears in his eyes getting off the phone. Of course, after hearing my dad's final phrase of our conversation, I wasn't in a state to start another conversation, my mom had to give me a few minutes to get myself together before I started talking to her about my decision.

She laughed about a few things. Apparently, on the very morning before I called to say that I would be leaving the Krishna's, my mother had had a phone call from my grandmother in Canada. She was asking my mom if she thought there was any chance that I would give up the Krishna lifestyle. My mom replied to her "I don't think so, I think this is where he will be for life." So the fact that I called up that very afternoon to tell her I was leaving was an amazing coincidence. I remember in 2004 when I told my mom that I would not be coming home for Christmas, because I would be attending a Krishna festival in Christchurch, at which I was getting initiated, I remember she started crying. Now, however, when she realised that my leaving the Krishna community in early December meant that I would be home for Christmas this year, she started crying happy tears.

In general I kept things on the down low while I sorted things out. I quickly applied for the unemployment benefit so that I would have some income while I sorted myself out. I put in an application to the university of Auckland for a course, which in the end I didn't get accepted into. And I started sorting out a place to live. As fate would have it, an old friend of mine had a fully vegan house, and a room that needed filling, which was going to be emptied on the very day I was planning on moving out of the monastery. Everything felt like it was falling into place, almost to the point of being amazing how well it was working out.

I had a few last things I needed to sort out before I left, and I spent my last week getting those things together, and hanging out when I could with my new best friend. It was an exciting week leading up to the big day, and I was filled with a whole lot of hope for the future. I knew it was still gonna be a tough and scary thing to do, but I now felt like I had much more to gain by leaving than I risked losing by doing so. As I tell people when they ask why I left, I felt like I had many more reasons to leave than I did to stay. That last week was also filled with anticipation. I didn't want the Krishna community to know ahead of time, because I knew that they would try to intervene in some way, and convince me to stay. My mind was made up, I was leaving.

Context is everything - Part Two

Originally when I was starting this blog I was going to call it "Philosophical Journeys of a Blind Heart". A few years ago I had the idea of putting together a presentation on my personal philosophical journey through life. I had realised, looking back at my life, and looking at the lives of friends around me, it seemed that people in general have a major inclination to accept philosophical stances not on their own merit, but out of emotional or psychological needs at the time. Sometimes atheists will claim that theistic philosophies arise out of the need to feel like there is someone in control, or that life has meaning. I think that, on one level, this is a fair statement, but I think it needs to be expanded. I think that, equally atheists will accept atheism not entirely out of a philosophical sense of 'rightness' but mostly out of an emotional or psychological need. I feel that if you map out people's lives as philosophical journeys, you will see a network of emotional and psychological triggers which led to their taking up new philosophical stances. I've sat through countless lectures at university hearing about the development of various thinkers and their theories, and throughout there is always a theme arising of personal struggles resulting in the rise of new social theories. I think we do a great disservice to ourselves when we assert that we have accepted certain things as truth solely because of their philosophical 'rightness' and not at least partly because of our own emotional and psychological needs.

When it comes to interpersonal relationships I think this same thing happens. Sometimes, at least in the short term, we will ignore problems in a relationship because that relationship serves some specific emotional or psychological need at the time. And sometimes, in order to dismiss people we will readily accept half-truths as essential elements of a persons character, accept speculations as secret realities, and then filter all our experiences of that person through these new social lenses. In the longer term, however, it's hard to maintain this kind of response in a relationship without a lot of hard work and determination.

I know that, if people want to write someone off, they will, and there is nothing you can do about it. Even to the point where, if you do try to do something about it, they will just take your attempts as evidence of their original claims. So, I know that by dealing with some of the ways I have been dismissed within the NZ Krishna community I may be providing more ammunition for my own dismissal. But I still value the right of replying to these accusations, regardless of how they will be received. Those who matter the most to me seem interested to read my reply, so I will deal with these four things, as I listed in my last entry, which were 1) that my blog is an internet campaign, 2) that my blog is an exercise in creative writing, or in other words that it is fictional, 3) that I have elastic gender inclinations, 4) that these elastic inclinations are something that I bottled up, struggled with for years, and eventually popped because of.

One last thing before I start, I've been asked by a friend to point out that the Hare Krishna world is wide and varied. Every area of the world has different things going on, and what is true for one centre is not true for all. So always take this into consideration whenever you read something I've written.

Issue one: Is my blog an internet campaign, specifically against the Hare Krishnas?

I was always worried that this blog would be considered an attach on the Hare Krishnas, which is why when I started I specifically asked two of my friends, who are still Hare Krishnas, one in NZ and one overseas, to monitor what I wrote and let me know if I started getting off track and offensive. Heck, I even wrote an entry entitled, "This Is Not An Anti-Krishna Blog". Writing this blog as an internet campaign or an attack on a community was never at all my intention. As I've explained several times before, I started this blog for my own personal reasons. Mainly, I was tired of having to explain to people over and over again about why I left the Krishna community, and what I had been up to for the past 7 years while I was absent from their social circles. I also realised that by not discussing things I was not properly dealing with issues I had experienced which I really needed to address in order to move forward.

The responses I received from people, especially when I first started this blog, was amazing. For one, people were able to draw parallels to their own individual lives. I had people who started writing to me about the different communities they were part of, whether it be work communities, religious communities, social communities, activist communities. They were able to say that "yes, my community also suffers from these same problems." I think that viewing the Krishna community as a unique community with unique problems is incorrect. It is also incorrect to dismiss whatever problems this blog may highlight as part of some internet campaign against a specific community. If anything, this blog serves to highlight certain frailties of the human creature in general. I think that the vast majority of people reading my blog are able to see it for what it is, at least I hope so.

The fact that my blog has been accused of being an internet campaign unfortunately says more for those making such claims than it does about my personal blog. It suggests that the people making such claims are unable to acknowledge problems that exist in their own community, or else want to ignore such problems, or keep them out of the view of other members of the community. As someone mentioned as a comment to my last entry, saying that there are no social problems in a community, or even a family, is itself a sign of social problems. Even my own family, which many people say they are envious of, has its own issues to deal with in terms of interpersonal issues. It is no criticism to acknowledge these things, and it is incredibly unhealthy to deny the existence of problems.

Is this an internet campaign? No it's not. It's just me sorting through my experiences in a public place.

Issue two: Is my blog a fictional creation?

This suggestion is probably the most cutting of all the negative things said about me or my blog. Is my blog fictional? No it's not. It's rather insulting to have someone suggest that my description of my experiences over the past 7 years is fictional, as I'm sure you can imagine. I don't really know what parts of my blog people would like to think are fictional, it would be interesting to find out what people think I've made up and why I would have done it. That would be interesting to find out.

It's funny, because I have had a number of people who lived in the monastery in the past, several who are still Hare Krishnas, saying that they were glad I was finally airing some of the problems that went on in the monastery, and some of the social problems which occurred there. I don't think I described anything that reveals the place to be incredibly corrupt or evil. The fact is the monastery suffered from the same problems as any workplace would, it was just compounded by the close living situations, and intensity of the setting. It happened, it wasn't fictional.

I mean, I do have e-mail records which can verify much of what I've discussed on here, I have friends who lived in the monastery at the times that I described who would be happy to verify what I've described. I don't really see how anyone can claim that my blog is fictional.

In my blog I have tried as best as I can to not deny my own part in negative social behaviour, or community problems. The community I lived in had issues, no denying it, and I played an active role in those problems, I perpetuated the same issues. If I were to write a fictional piece, attacking the community, surely I would make myself come out smelling like roses, but I definitely didn't do that.

Is my blog subjective? Yes it is. It is me describing my subjective experience, looking back at it with a certain mindset and analysing it all with ever changing emotional and psychological needs. If one wanted to dismiss my blog, why not dismiss it based on that fact, and not on the claim that it is fictional. Subjective experience is never fictional, it just may not correlate 100% with someone else's subjective experience of the same thing. While speaking to a friend of mine recently about this all, he made a joke like that, which certainly held truth, he said it was ridiculous how my blog was being dismissed, he said it should be dismissed in one sense for being overly emotional, but not for being fictional, or being the writings of someone with 'elastic gender inclinations', and I think that is fair enough. Read my blog in the context of someone struggling to deal with the feelings one could expect to deal with while making radical lifestyle, worldview and community changes in their late 20s. If you do that, there is no need to make claims that this blog is fictional. It's just subjective. Filter it through the subjectiveness if you must, but acknowledge it as truth, and deal with that truth as you need to in order to continue on with your life, or help you live a better one.

Issue three: Do I have elastic gender inclinations?

I personally don't think this as much of an important issue as the above two, and probably the final one. For starters, what does this claim mean? A friend of mine wanted me to clear up whether the implication being made had to do with gender identity issues or sexual orientation issues. The wording that is being used is definitely both ambiguous and vague at the same time. As I describe the context of this claim I think it will all become a bit more clear.

According to the article I referenced in my last blog, it is claimed that I disclosed in a discussion with another devotee that prior to my taking to Krishna consciousness my "gender inclinations had been elastic". I would like to discuss the context of this conversation, as well as the context of my 'revelation'.

Sometime after I started writing this blog I was contacted by a female devotee who found my blog interesting because of her own experiences within the Krishna community in New Zealand. Because of the segregated nature of the community, I really had nothing much to do with the women Hare Krishnas, I didn't know much about them or how their communities functioned. Since leaving, especially since writing this blog, I have gained a bit more insight into their world. In a lot of ways, it's increased my satisfaction in my decision to leave.

This devotee who contacted me was once being utilized by the NZ Krishna community as a wonderful example of how the powerful process of Krishna consciousness can I guess cure someone from being a lesbian. At the very least, that's what this film suggests - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWSqYruVc-E&feature=related - as it labels this devotees as an 'ex-lesbian'. Feel free to make your own value judgments on that one.

I found myself confronted with a troubled devotee who definitely felt she was being mistreated because of her sexual orientation. My response was to do the same thing I often did when confronted with those types of situations, I discussed my personal history, experience, philosophies and thoughts on the issue of sexual orientation and sexual identity.

When I was 16 I started taking more and more of an interest in anarchist social theories, and all related topics; feminism, anti-racism, anti-homophobia, animal rights, environmentalism. What this meant was going through a constant reassessment of my own personal values and personal assumption about myself and society around me. Why did things occur in our society as they did? Was this the best, or even most truthful approach to social interactions? The whole community I found myself a part of, especially as I grew older and moved out of home, was one that was always questioning and challenging social norms, and issues surrounding sex, sexuality and sexual identities were definitely up for challenging. Concepts such as polyamory were/are definitely common within the anarchist and activist communities around the world, and the communities in NZ were also taking interest in these theories and practices. I remember reading 'Refusing to be a Man' by John Stoltenberg, a radical feminist who put forward some very interesting concepts of gender identities, and sex and sexuality. Reading his book was definitely something that, at the time, made me start deeply questioning issues like sexual attraction and sexual orientation. He had a way of putting everything on a continuum, even gender. His claim was that sex is not a black and white label, male or female, but a continuum of identity, even based solely on physical traits, which just happened to have larger percentages at two peaks of the population graphs. It was an interesting way to put things, and reading it made me question my own personal histories and attractions to body types. What was the basis of it? Similarly, sexual orientation was placed on a continuum, many people never really questioning the black and white views of sexual orientation they have been brought up with, and therefore never really analysing their own personal sexual attractions to body types. And anarchist and activist communities I moved within were always challenging such concepts, and encouraging people to challenge them as well. And as I challenged various other societal values I also questioned and challenged it's values when it came to sexuality. I think it was this challenging mood which also led to me happily accepting a life of complete celibacy as well.

As a result of my challenging, and honest, reflection during this time, I personally came to the conclusion that sexual orientation was a very fluid concept. If I was honest I had to acknowledge that there were times when I was romantically or sexually attracted to people of the same sex, to some degree. Essentially, I found myself dismissing the concept of sexual orientation in general, and decided it was much more pragmatic to simply just see whatever developed naturally in terms of relationships. I was never a highly promiscuous person by any means, so it didn't seem to really matter much how I described myself, relationships would develop naturally however they did. Taking that pragmatic approach, I would say that, if I were to give a label to my sexual orientation I would borrow a phrase a friend used for me the other day, 'a bit bi'. And, in my opinion, if more people took the time to analyse their own personal lives, and were willing to actually challenge societal conventions we've been fed surrounding sexuality, I think we would find a large portion of society falling into the category of 'a bit bi'. The only difference was I went through a process and period of questioning, challenging and experimenting.

Issue four: Did I bottle up and deny an elastic gender inclination, and thus suffer through my years in an all-male monastery until I 'popped the cork' and left?

A friend of mine pointed out that this claim makes me sound like I was hiding in the closet, full of lusty thoughts, masturbating while watching other monks get changed, which I personally think is hilarious on so many levels.

The article I am dealing with at the moment makes several claims about this. For one, it is suggested that I was "hiding and bottling up such significant psycho-physical tendencies for some years". Personally, I didn't find that I had significant psycho-physical tendencies to begin with, so the assumption that I was hiding them or bottling up such tendencies is itself a non-issue in a lot of ways. I think that, in my explanation above, I probably would have shown that I took more of a pragmatic approach to my own sexual orientation. Since within the Krishna community, with its general celibacy, and suggested/arranged marriages, my personal pragmatic approach was, for the most part null and void. I never found myself struggling with repressed sexual or romantic attraction to any of the men in the Krishna community, nor to any of the women within the Krishna community for that matter. Since my approach to sexual orientation was based on a wider context of questioning the values of society, I never really found it relevant to the context of the Krishna community. When I entered the Krishna community, I willingly accepted the values and social assumptions of that community, so my pragmatic approach to sexual orientation that I held previously seemed to be irrelevant within this new community, so what value was there in discussing it?

Sexual desire had pretty much zero to do with my reasons for preparing to leave the Krishna community. I mean, unlike many others in the monastery, I never struggled with masturbation, I had maybe 6 'wet dreams' a year, I did not look at pornography on the internet, I never thought of any single member of the Hare Krishna community in a sexual way. It really baffles my mind how someone could make the assumption that this had any thing to do at all with my leaving the Krishna community. It sounds to me to be such a scapegoat, a way to deflect the possible reality that I left because I lost faith in the community, the leadership, the philosophy and scriptures.

Everyone outside of the Krishna community which have viewed these comments about me have made their own observations that they are highly homophobic, and they really are. Which brings up one major fear I have about these comments. In the article I am dealing with, it is mentioned that a monastery/asrama is not the place for someone with any kind of 'elastic' gender inclination. For starters, I do think this is a homophobic statement in general, with certain assumptions that I think are just plain incorrect. But, even more so, I think this is both impractical, and also carries the risk of making potential candidates for the monastic life in the Hare Krishna movement doubt their own sexualities, or deny tendencies that are indeed significant for them.

For starters, what sort of checks would you preform to discover where on the continuum of sexual orientation a candidate monk sits? And where would you draw the line? Would you ask questions like "have you ever wanted to kiss someone of the same sex?" or "have you ever thought another man was good looking?" And at what point on the continuum would you draw the line? How could you discern whether someone had not yet taken an honest look at themselves, and may actually be completely gay altogether? And how would that even really matter if they never found themselves struggling with sexual desire to begin with? Wouldn't an approach like this breed more of a 'don't-ask-don't-tell' situation?

To be honest, after hearing about the ways that the ladies in the Krishna community have been treated who have openly identified as 'queer', I would not fault anyone for not wanting to discuss their sexual orientation within that community. Imagine never being allowed to be left alone with someone of the same sex, for fear that some sexual attraction may develop between to two. Or imagine if you were a lesbian and an entire community tried to 'fix' you sexual orientation. And now, imagine watching someone leave the Krishna community and then hearing accusations that the reason they left was because of bottling up gender inclinations which were 'elastic'. What sort of message does this send to the rest of the community when it comes to issues of sexual orientation? Personally, to me it seems to send the message of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I think this is the longest it's taken me to work on any of the updates I've written for this blog to date. And to be honest, I'm not entirely confident that this has really dealt with the issues brought up. Either way, I hope that it provides some extra context and things to think about when figuring out how you will view this blog and the issues it brings up. I'm gonna let this issue rest for now on my blog, though I still may be taking other actions in relation to the public dismissal. In my next update I'll continue discussing the final lead up to my leaving the Krishna community.

Context is everything

On the day I left the Krishna community for good I remember saying to a friend of mine, "I hope you're ready for the roller-coaster ride". Obviously leaving a tight and closed community I had been part of for 7 years, which had been my primary, even sole, focus for a quarter of my life was going to involve a very rocky transition period. Of course, over 7 years there were good times and bad times, to deny either would be ignorant. And I am happy to accept and acknowledge my own personal shortcomings within that community, as well as acknowledge the shortcomings of the community itself. To ignore those would not be healthy at all.

I knew when I left the community that people within the community would need to reconcile my leaving in some way that allowed them to continue with faith and confidence in the religious community they wished to remain within. And when I started this blog, I also assumed that the members of this community would eventually also find a way to dismiss anything negative I had to say about my experiences within that community. And they certainly seem to have done that. Though perhaps in a way that I think has the potential to be rather negative, even destructive, for their community.

I think, when you take these two things into consideration you can understand why this has happened. I started writing this blog to explain to my wide range of friends what I've been up to over the years, and my reasons for leaving. I also started writing this blog as a way for me to deal with specifically the more negative experiences and impressions I had within the community, because, strictly speaking, these are the ones that are most negatively affecting me still, they are the ones which I found slowly eroded my usually high self confidence. Therefore, my blog had a certain mood to it. When you combine this mood with the tendency for a religious community to attack anything it sees as criticism, with increasing attacks depending on the nature of the perceived criticism, then it is no wonder this religious community has created an interesting illusion in order to dismiss the contents of this blog, and my personal description of my experiences within that community.

Despite this, when I was sent a link last week to blog by a prominent Hare Krishna leader I was still struck with surprise, and a bit of hurt, to read just how this community has gone about dismissing me. The full article can be read here, but below is the specific part of the blog which relates to me:

Recently, somewhere in the ISKCON world, in the southern hemisphere, a monk apprentice suddenly, without a word, departed the ashram for full material life, and then astonished his comrades by launching an Internet campaign of, shall we say, creative writing, depicting his brahmachari years as emotionally coerced suffering. Later he revealed to a lady devotee that prior to his devotee years, his gender inclinations had been elastic. Commonplace today, gender variables are no barrier to a bhakti practice, at home. An ashram, however, is a special niche. The brahmachari comrades of this former monk apprentice, still deeply valuing this person, were saddened more by the unnecessary stress and pain their friend had inflicted upon himself, than by the glaring lack of disclosure and interpersonal honesty. Hiding and bottling up such significant psycho-physical tendencies for some years popped the cork in such a regrettable and immature manner.

I plan to address the issues and claims of the above statement in a later blog update. Personally, I'm not willing to entirely speculate about the motives behind these statements. Nonetheless, I think it's fair to comment on the likely effects of such statements.

I do not think that my blog was/is an internet campaign to oppose something. I hope that it doesn't sound like my past 7 years were filled with emotionally coerced suffering. I do, however, think that my experience within the Krishna community has the potential to highlight some areas within that community which I feel that community needs to address if it is going to become an example of a healthy community. And the community has two options. It can either completely dismiss anything I have to say as being an angry internet campaign propagated by a closet sexual deviant. Or it can acknowledge in a humble way that perhaps things aren't 100% perfect and there are areas that need addressing. I think the fact that they have opted to instead take second/third hand conversations out of context, speculate upon that to come up with a fantastic tale of my real reasons for leaving the monastery and Krishna consciousness in general, and then laid this out for public airing is sad, and almost scary.

Another effect that a story like this has is that it make everyone start to second guess every interaction they have had with me in the past. How much of it was fueled by a 'repressed sexual identity'? The opportunity for people to speculate after being given a sudden surprise based on next to no real information or background, or even context, means that the doors are wide open to come up with a multitude of theories and speculations, all the while being distracted from the reality that the community is not sparkling clean and shiny, but has serious social issues to deal with, and a hierarchy of people who really don't have the qualities to occupy positions of power over every aspect of other people's lives. And I think this is a problem. It is also a symptom of an unhealthy community. Which in one sense is ironic. While trying to protect the community from a perceived risk of criticism, the community has instead risked making a spectacle of its inability to acknowledge any internal lackings.

But I think the average reader of this blog can make up their own minds about this based on what they have available to read.

The statement made in relation to me carries four specific claims I will deal with in my next blog update. Those are 1) that my blog is an internet campaign, 2) that my blog is an exercise in creative writing, or in other words that it is fictional, 3) that I have elastic gender inclinations, 4) that these elastic inclinations are something that I bottled up, struggle with for years, and eventually popped because of. I will probably work on my next update over the weekend, and into next week, so expect an update sometime early next week.

It's better than it actually is

The past week has been a very busy week for me. And to show you why, this update includes a link and two videos:

http://www.3news.co.nz/Pig-protestor-chains-himself-to-silo/tabid/309/articleID/150518/Default.aspx

Also, on Friday night a friend of mine sent me a facebook message with a link to a blog with some interesting comments about my blog and some even more interesting speculations on my 'real' reasons for leaving the Krishna community. I'm not gonna tackle that yet, I'm waiting to hear back from a few people before I do, but I think there are some interesting themes to discuss from that. I'd be lying if I said that this didn't occupy a large part of my mind over the weekend. But I'm lucky. I somehow have a lot of friends around me who are willing to support me when I need it. I have been on the phone to a number of my friends who are still involved in the Krishna community in some way or another who have expressed their own feelings of concern about what has been written about me. Anyway, I'm not gonna to discuss this right at the moment, but you can wait in anticipation for when I do.

On with todays update:

There is an interesting human quality that seems to be used as a coping mechanism for things that just aren't exactly as amazing or perfect as we hope they would be. That mechanism is to constantly talk about how great things are. This artificial superposition seems to cover over the reality we are confronted with, and allows us to maintain an illusory sense about our circumstances.

I can remember being a teenager, before I became straightedge, talking about how amazing our weekend parties had been, despite the fact that we really just got so drunk we were sick for most of the night, and likely still recovering from the hangovers. Somehow, constantly talking about how great they were really does make it feel like it was a good time, and increases your anticipation for the next week. But the reality was not that pretty.

I've had friendships in which we would often talk up how great of friends we were to each other, and when having those discussions it actually did seem that way, but time always proves the strengths of real friendships, and sometimes painfully pulls back the curtain to reveal not much at all.

Often, how this occurs is that the best parts of something are emphasised, while the weaker parts are ignored. This will include comparisons with other, lesser examples to show just how great your situation or thing really is.

Our monastery was like that. I can't make any comments on it now, but it was like that while I was there. And that actually did make it hard for me to leave it in a lot of ways.

The way we would talk about the monastery was often to point out all the problems that other Krishna monasteries in the western world suffered from. And it was true, our monastery was free from a lot of those things. We did have a solid combined focus for the most part, we weren't just used as 'roster-foder' by a management trying to keep a failing temple running. We weren't being used as fundraising slaves like in other areas of the world. We had our own vege garden. We could focus on our own spiritual practices without a lot of distractions of other monasteries in the world. And that was definitely good. But I think it would be inaccurate to say that the monastery was a well functioning one.

We would often have classes in the monastery were we would hear about how lucky we were to be in the monastery, and there was always an never ending list of reasons why we were so lucky. But as the manager of the monastery it really didn't feel that way to me. It seemed like our management meetings were always full of dealing with personality clashes, and it really did feel like we never made any progress dealing with what seemed to be rather easy issues. There was the constant tendency for standards to constantly drop, and it seemed like a constant battle amongst the managers to keep the standards clear. It's incorrect to say it was a total mess, there were positive things going on. The point is, however, that we were really doing ourselves a big disservice by always talking about how amazing our monastery was, instead of being realistic and trying to actually make it an amazing place.

Because it wasn't really amazing. It wasn't incredibly inspiring to be there, I didn't feel that there was strong leadership at all, if anything the leadership was a serious let down. There definitely was no real sense of camaraderie at all. It didn't feel like we were progressing forward in any way, there didn't seem to be any real training taking place, we were just treading water a lot of the time. It wasn't the dynamic atmosphere we were advertised as being at all. But it wasn't horrible. It just wasn't sufficient. And as time goes by, if we aren't getting progressively more out of a situation, then we aren't going to be being determined to continue within it. And that lead me to be more determined to leave.

Within the Krishna community we would also often hear about the important of taking guidance from seniors, being completely honest, making ourselves vulnerable to seniors, especially those in the position of mentors. This is emphasised over and over again. And generally, whenever someone leaves, the excuse that is given is that they didn't take enough advantage of the seniors around them. They didn't reveal their minds enough. They didn't make themselves vulnerable to the seniors. This serves to provide a nice excuse for when people leave. An excuse it essential. Otherwise it might hint that things aren't as pristine as they are pretended to be. However, there is seldom discussion on whether or not there are actually people in the community who have the qualities needed to be actual leaders, mentors, guides for people to put full personal and emotional trust in. In my personal experience, I did not find that to be the case. In the monastery, I could not find the confidence and faith to make myself vulnerable to the mentors there. We had an option of three, one was had a history of bullying, the other two, while being nice people, just didn't have the qualities I could look up to as mentors. Being steady in their practices really isn't the sole quality.

As a friend commented on my last blog, in every situation all parties should be able to see that they are 50% to blame. That is what makes for a healthy community and friendship. Without that, things will never improve, mainly because of the staunch determination to deny that things need to change. That is a very sad situation. But, by constantly talking about just how great a situation is, while turning a blind eye to all the evidence that proves it really isn't that perfect, one will never have a chance to actually create a great environment. It's not criticism to say that things need to improve. It's not an attack or a campaign of opposition. It's called honesty. And it pays to apply it to all situations, instead of simply continuing to point the finger at others.

Many times when devotees leave the Krishna community it will be said that they left because they weren't willing to work on themselves. I remember once someone left our monastery without giving any notice. I arrived home one day, and went into his room, and all I found was a note saying he had left. I contacted our monastery authority to see what he wanted us to tell the other monks about this sudden departure. His reply was that this person had a lot of issues they weren't being honest about. Perhaps that is true. But I also felt like it was my fault, for not being considerate enough with his situation, for pushing him into taking on more than he was able to cope with in terms of services and jobs. But to claim that he wasn't willing to work on himself was a good scapegoat from taking the blame on ourselves.

I personally find it highly ironic. In my personal situation, I am finding that I am working on myself harder now than ever before, primarily because I now feel like I have a community around me that is happy to support me as I try to work on the negative mental patterns I have developed over the years. Instead of faulting a person for not working on themselves in a specific situation, perhaps it is worthwhile analysing that situation to discover if there are weaknesses that prevent people from making themselves vulnerable and really being honest with themselves to others.

I have talked to a number of Hare Krishnas who really do not feel like they have that type of environment available to them in New Zealand, in any of the different centres, and I think it is a valid concern. I think that the aggressive tactic of solely placing blame on these individuals is the most negative approach possible for that community.

I know this isn't entirely an update that fits into any chronology of the story. I really am stalling at the moment. But I figure it's better to write something than nothing, considering I had almost gone a month without updating at all. And yes, my mood has changed in my blog at the moment. I have been accused of writing this blog as an internet campaign against the Hare Krishnas, and I have had some rather insulting speculations made about me on a public forum by a Hare Krishna leader, and I would be lying if I said that I wasn't feeling angry about that. Clearly this is going to affect how I write at the moment. But like I said, I'll discuss all of that a little later. It's something that I don't think I can let slide without addressing directly.

How to dismiss a ex-Hare Krishna blog in three easy steps

So it's been seriously close to one month since I last updated this blog. What can I say, it's been a very busy month for me. And having my own computer now has actually meant, ironically, that I have been much less focused on writing for this blog than I was before I had this computer. I think this is mostly because I've become a big fan of talking to friends via the miracle of facebook chat. But after a full month of people asking me for a new update, combined with some extra inspiration to continue writing over the past couple of days, I've decided to finally get it back in action.

This entry is actually one I've started and stopped at least 10 times over the past month. This time I've turned all my online chats off, and I'm planning an early night at home with no distractions.

As my mind became settled in knowing that I would leave the Krishna community, I started to become more aware of the socialised mechanisms used within communities to retain membership. I guess consciousness is state specific, as they say, which means that you will be more aware of certain things depending on your desires and consciousness. My desires were to leave the Krishna conscious community, so I was made more aware of the social mechanisms which snap into place to encourage people not to leave that community.

As I've said many times before, this really isn't property of religious communities specifically, but I think of all close communities in general. I would say that I experienced the same social mechanisms when I first started showing interest in Krishna consciousness, and I see these same mechanisms sometimes come into play in the hardcore and straightedge communities as well. Pretty much every community. What I think the Krishna community offered was a more magnified view of this social phenomenon.

I can remember vividly the very morning before I left the monastery there was a conversation held over breakfast. The discussion was on two points. One was that whenever anyone leaves Krishna consciousness, they are destined to end up in the same negative positions they were in before the started Krishna consciousness. In other words, if one was a former drug addict, they would likely return to their drug use, if someone was suffering from depression, they would end up depressed again, if someone were highly promiscuous, they would end up back in the same negative patterns of life which they had originally left behind. The devotees would then think about the previous aspects of their lives which they found distasteful, and their lips would curl in distaste. And in many cases rightly so I think. The underlying assumption is that one cannot be progressive in their lives, they cannot aim for self-betterment, outside of the Krishna conscious community. And if they leave that community, they will be doomed to a life of pain and suffering.

The second point that was brought up during that breakfast was the concept that 'Maya', or illusion, acts even harsher on ex-Hare Krishnas, it is Krishna's way of trying to convince them that they made a mistake. It is even said that the more someone dedicated to the service of Krishna consciousness, the more Maya will make them suffer once they leave. Often times, at this point, the devotees would bring up stories of ex-Hare Krishnas who, upon leaving the Krishna consciousness movement, ended up finding themselves in situations of extreme suffering. These stories are thrown around like Gospel truths, the standard expectation. There was the ex-Hare Krishna who ended up married into a Muslim relationship, where her Arabic husband mistreated her to such extreme levels that she ended up having to run away with her children to save herself from the abusive relationship. This was said to be a result of her leaving Krishna consciousness, after having done so much service. Another ex-Hare Krishna found himself getting beat up one late night in Auckland while walking home. This was said to be a result of his selling so many books for Krishna, but then leaving the community behind.

As I sat during breakfast hearing these same stories repeated, those taking part in this conversation speaking so convinced by their words, I just felt like shaking my head.

Also, as the time came when I become more determined to leave the community a former member of our monastery was beginning to make movements to again take up the practice of Krishna consciousness. I can't recall if I told the story already, but one day I was on Google Chat, and he started to talk to me about how he was preparing to meet up with our Guru to discuss things. I knew he was hoping for my encouragement, and I felt such heavy irony in the fact that I was only days away from leaving Krishna consciousness behind just as he was entering again.

We've never really discussed his original reasons for leaving Krishna consciousness, personally I'm not willing to speculate. But I what I can say is that the community reacts in a very specific way whenever devotees do leave the community. How they react is that they construct their own explanations as to why devotees have left. This serves to shift any possible blame away from the pristine and amazing leadership, camaraderie, facility and training which they have been offered, and instead places the blame 100% on the shoulders of the person exiting the community. In every case that I witnessed of a person leaving the Krishna consciousness community this is exactly the response I have witnessed. And this served as a constant retaining mechanism for the community.

To begin with, it serves to dismiss any claims brought by an exiting devotee. They weren't honest about their motives, they weren't willing to work on themselves, they hide aspects of their lives, and this resulted in them leaving. As a result, whatever statements they have to make about their experience within the community is likely fictional, a creation of their own minds, bewildered by illusion. This also serves to contain the impacts of those who leave. Their departure can now easily be explained and dismissed without further investigation. And finally, it serves to create a sense of fear amongst the community, as devotees worry "I wonder what they would say about me if I left?"

My original plan for departing from the Krishna consciousness community was one I ended up abandoning. I had been offered a trip to India, which seemed to me like it was a last ditch effort to revitalise my spiritual life. The trip was to take place over February of 2010. I had decided that I would stick it out until my trip to India, because I really wanted to finally get out of NZ for some time. I would return from India, and then make my departure, with the hopes of immediately starting studying at university. Obviously this didn't occur, and there are a number of reasons for that.

There were a few reasons for this. For starters, I realised that my going to India, on a spiritual pilgrimage, with the aim of leaving my spiritual practices behind completely upon the end of the trip was probably not the most honest thing I could do. Also, I started to realise that the transition Hare Krishna monk to full-time student probably was NOT gonna be a straight forward transition to make. I realised that if I was actually gonna start getting my life together, I was probably gonna need more than a single weekend after my return from India to do so.

There were also other reasons for my speeding up my timeline for departing this community, which I will discuss when I put out my next update, probably sometime over the next week. But right now I have to get to sleep, because I am walking up at around 4 am tomorrow morning to prepare for a dynamic animal rights protest. I'll let you know how that went in my next update as well.